Untitled

Matsumura Keibun 松村景文|Rai San’yō 頼山陽

ca. 1830s · Pair of hanging scrolls; ink and color on silk · Asian Art

Matsumura Keibun carefully brushed these peonies to impart subtle changes of color to each petal and leaf, conveying three-dimensionality. Keibun was the half brother and pupil of Matsumura Goshun (1752–1811), who founded the Shijō school of painting in Kyoto. A quatrain of Chinese verse, composed and fluently brushed in cursive and semicursive scripts by the celebrated Confucian scholar Rai San’yō, praises the peonies: 洛水春風常掩關 不從姚魏酔雕欄 秋燈半壁高齋夜 却白霜縑看牡丹 As spring breezes reach the capital’s river, my gate remains shut, and I do not become drunk and lean on balustrades to admire peonies of the houses of Yao and Wei. Rather, on this autumn night, when a lamp lights up half of my study, I prefer to gaze quietly upon these painted peonies on the frost-white silk. —Trans. Tim T. Zhang

Artist

Matsumura Keibun 松村景文|Rai San’yō 頼山陽

Date

ca. 1830s

Medium

Pair of hanging scrolls; ink and color on silk

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection, Gift of Mary and Cheney Cowles, 2022